Chapter 26 - The Box in the Floorboards
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A week passed in blissful, boring tranquility. We established a new routine. School runs, chaotic family dinners, and quiet evenings on the porch. The ghosts of the syndicate felt like a distant nightmare, rapidly fading into memory.
But old habits die incredibly hard.
On a quiet Tuesday afternoon, while Mara was out taking the boys to a pediatrician appointment, I decided to finally clear out my old study. It was a room I had rarely used, filled with locked filing cabinets and burner phones from my paranoid days. I wanted it all gone. I wanted to turn the room into a playroom for the boys.
I was pulling a heavy mahogany desk away from the wall when I noticed it.
One of the oak floorboards beneath the desk was slightly misaligned. The gap was barely a millimeter wider than the others, but to an eye trained to spot hidden compartments, it was glaring.
I frowned, kneeling down. I had never installed a floor safe in this room.
I grabbed a flathead screwdriver from my toolbox and wedged it into the seam. With a sharp crack, the floorboard popped loose.
Inside the dusty cavity was a sleek, silver briefcase.
My heart skipped a beat. It wasn't mine. It didn't belong to Silas or Marcus.
I pulled the briefcase out. It was heavy, locked with a sophisticated digital keypad. My mind raced. Victor's men had breached the house and left the black chess piece in the boys' room. Had they hidden this here during that infiltration? Was it a bomb?
I carefully carried the briefcase down to the basement workbench, scanning it with a handheld thermal and electromagnetic detector I kept for security sweeps. No explosives. No tracking beacons.
I grabbed a heavy drill and bored straight through the digital locking mechanism. The latches popped open with a hiss.
I lifted the lid.
It wasn't a weapon. It was filled with meticulously organized files, flash drives, and photographs.
I picked up the first manila folder. The label on the tab made my blood run cold.
PROJECT ORION - CLASSIFIED.
I opened the file. The first page was a detailed dossier on Mara's father, Richard. But it wasn't a corporate profile. It listed illegal arms shipments, bribery of federal judges, and offshore shell companies that predated my involvement with the syndicate by decades.
I flipped to the next page. It was a photograph of Richard shaking hands with a younger Victor.
May you like
I stumbled backward, the file slipping from my hands, scattering glossy photos across the basement floor.
Richard didn't just know Victor. They had been partners.
